The Armenian Cycling Federation launched a fundraising campaign to help the national team prepare for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Mediamax Sport received this information from the team’s manager Armen Gyozalyan.
Mesrop Shaboyan, former World Youth Champion, came up with the campaign idea. He currently lives in USA, and according to Gyozalyan, he provides regular financial support and equipment to Armenian cyclists.
“Mesrop suggested we could find money for preparing to the tournaments through this platform. We thought it over, accounted for all probabilities and decided to try. The state funding to our federation makes AMD 13m annually, which is not enough to achieve our goals,” the manager stressed.
According to Gyozalyan, their schedule is packed until 2020: in summer they have U23 Track European Championship, and in October the regular team will compete in the European Championship. Armenian cyclists also anticipate partaking in World Cup in the Netherlands and England.
“The quotas will be introduced in 2018, but we need to take part in this year’s competitions in order to qualify for the World Cup. We set the goal as USD 50 000, although even that won’t be enough to realize our three-year program. Cycling is an expensive sport in regard to equipment, as the requirements for the bicycle’s weight and quality change very often,” he added.
The federation intends to prepare two cyclists for the 2020 Olympics. Mher Mkrtchyan is currently in France, and plays for the Armenia national team, while Edgar Stepanyan is fulfilling his army duty.
You can support Armenian cyclists by this link https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/funds-for-armenian-national-cycling-team-sports#/ .
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